70+ combined years of direct field experience.
Not a content farm. Not an AI-built thin site. Two real experts, one shared obsession: giving you the number that actually applies to your situation.
Browse all calculators →FigureNerd is built by two founding partners with 70+ combined years of direct field experience. One partner brings 40+ years in CEO operations, small-business management, real estate, asset protection, portfolio building, and personal finance. The other is an HVAC, refrigeration, and mechanical industry legend whose reputation precedes him. He brings 30+ years in HVAC-R, mechanical systems, construction, and trades.
Every FigureNerd calculator goes through extensive industry-specific investigative research. We cross-reference our methodology against the highest-authority expert data available in each field, document our sources, and benchmark against the industry's best. Then we push to do it better. Each calculator represents real time, real research, and real field experience: not generic formulas pulled from a textbook.
Every FigureNerd calculator follows a four-layer methodology. We read the top competitor tools for each topic, identify where they get it wrong, pull the authoritative expert data (IRS publications, ACCA Manual J, ASHRAE standards, FHFA conforming limits, EPA guidance), and then build the formula against verified ground-truth values. No textbook defaults. No generic national averages applied to situations where they don't apply.
Domain-sensitive values -- like HVAC tonnage for a Zone 6 climate, or safe harbor underpayment thresholds for 1099 filers -- are reviewed by the relevant partner before the calculator ships. We name our sources on every calculator page. We link to the primary source. We update when regulations change.
Ready to figure something out? Browse all 18 free calculators. No signup. No email gate. Plain English results.
Browse all calculators →Jillian Dupree is FigureNerd's editorial voice. She is the consistent style and quality bar across every calculator, article, and source citation on this site. When you read "By Jillian Dupree" on a FigureNerd page, you are reading content that has been written, reviewed, and approved to the same standard: plain English, qualified verbs, named sources, and no black-box math.
The two founding partners build and verify the calculators. Jillian is how they write about them. She brings the domain knowledge of both partners to every page and applies the FigureNerd voice rules: no jargon without a definition, no formula without a source, no claim without a receipt. Her byline on a page means the content has been checked against the primary source and reviewed for the grade 9-11 reading level that makes these tools useful to real people rather than just to specialists.
FigureNerd is transparent about how this works: Jillian is the editorial persona of this site, not a licensed professional. The expertise behind her byline comes from the two founding partners who built and verified the calculators. She translates that expertise into plain English so you can use the tools without a finance degree or a trade certification. That is what she does, and that is what her byline stands for.
Questions about a specific calculator's methodology? See the Methodology page for the full source list and four-layer build process.